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“Don’t make me get all Socratic on your ass,” John says, around a mouth ful of his Sausalito omelet. Ol’ John spends a lot of time talking like his world-view has him as the star of his own Samuel L. Jackson movie, with a score by the Propellerheads. “‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’” “I know what I think,” I say, “You, Mister Let-Me-Show-You-How-To-Braise That-Steak-Properly… what do you think makes a good comic?” Whereupon John launched into a brief description of “terroir,” which he described for me as that special combination of soil composition and cli mate which provides distinction to a particular grape-growing region. The environment under which the grapes are grown and the wine is made has a unique effect on the final result. John then went on to explain something about the California growing zones and the subsequent formation of a unit of measurement called “degree days” and the agreed upon assumption that certain varietals perform bet ter in individuals zones and a bunch of other stuff and I hasten to add any errors in reportage here are mine and not errors of fact on John’s part. But it quickly became clear to me that this “terroir” thing works in comics as well. Just as you can have wine made from the same kind of grapes grown in the same place yield a different tasting vintage, so too can you have a comic done by the same guys using the same characters yielding variable levels of enjoyment. Instead of subjecting you to variations on the “its oaky flavor is reminis cent of long walks in the Vermont woods in the second week of October” and “this pinot noir smells of Russian leather and candle wax” thing, I’m just going to come out and tell you what I think makes a good comic:

Words and pictures must juxtapose so the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

If I wanted aesthetically pleasing art, I’d visit a museum. If I wanted enjoy able words, I’d read a book. Give me an enjoyable story with pleasing art, and that’s a good comic.

A sense of entertainment.

If I’m going to spend time reading a comic book, I want to be entertained. It doesn’t have to be entertaining, per se; see the “Pathos. Engagement. Poignancy. Elegance. Falling-down Funniness. Instruction. Joy.”-comment, above. But it has to be worth my time.

It’s gotta take me by surprise.

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